I'm a General, but its not my fault...
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3806713.stm

Iraq abuse ordered from the top

The US commander at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner scandal says she was told to treat detainees like dogs.

Brig Gen Janis Karpinski told the BBC she was being made a "convenient scapegoat" for abuse ordered by others.

Top US commander for Iraq, Gen Ricardo Sanchez, should be asked what he knew about the abuse, she told BBC Radio 4's On The Ropes programme.

One soldier has been sentenced and six others are awaiting courts martial for abuses committed at Abu Ghraib jail.

Gen Karpinski said more damaging information was likely to emerge at those trials.

Gen Karpinski was in charge of the military police unit that ran Abu Ghraib and other prisons when the abuses were committed. She has been suspended but not charged.

More details awaited

Photographs showing naked Iraqi detainees being humiliated and maltreated first started to surface in April, sparking shock and anger across the world.

Gen Karpinski said military intelligence took over part of the Abu Ghraib jail to "Gitmoize" their interrogations - make them more like what was happening in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which is nicknamed "Gitmo".


He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them
General Karpinski

In pictures: Prisoner abuse
She said current Iraqi prisons chief Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller - who was in charge at Guantanamo Bay - visited her in Baghdad and said: "At Guantanamo Bay we learned that the prisoners have to earn every single thing that they have."

"He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them."

Gen Karpinski repeated that she knew nothing of the humiliation and torture of Iraq prisoners that was going on inside Abu Ghraib - she was made a scapegoat.

Top commander Ricardo Sanchez must be asked serious questions about what he knew about the abuse and when, she said.

Gen Sanchez said in May that he took a personal responsibility for the abuse by soldiers at Abu Ghraib jail. But he denied authorising interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation, stress positions or sensory deprivation.

Last week, he asked to be excused from any role in reviewing the results of an investigation into the abuses. He requested that a higher-ranking general take on that task, Pentagon officials said.

A US general who has investigated the abuse has blamed the soldiers - and found no evidence "of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did".

But Gen Karpinski believes the soldiers had not taken the pictures of their own accord.

"I know that the MP [military police] unit that these soldiers belonged to hadn't been in Abu Ghraib long enough to be so confident that one night or early morning they were going to take detainees out of their cells, pile them up and photograph themselves in various positions with these detainees."

"How it happened or why those photographs came to the Criminal Investigation Division's attention in January I think will probably come out very clearly at each individual's court martial."

So, what do you think?

All I can say is, whatever happened to "the buck stops here"?

I really can't fathom the libs who want Rumsfeld and Sanchez fired, but want to make excuses for the "commander" of the unit.

Where I went to school, the commander was responsible for everything the unit did or failed to do.

Obviously, this only extends up so far, but last time I checked, it did not skip any levels in between.

TR

Here's what I don't get: BG Karpinski is not being charged, and obviously knows that she's not ever getting another promotion again, so why not just man up and do what's right? I never understood the urge to burn down the house around you when you get busted.

You want to know what I think? I think some people take

I (insert name), having been appointed a (insert rank) in the U.S. Army under the conditions indicated in this document, do accept such appointment and do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.

more seriously than others.

The word I hear (and I do not know if this is accurate) is that she is under article 32 investigation. I expect she will be charged.

Damn right. And the ones that don't take it seriously? Skin them...like poodles...

They should have banned cameras! :munchin

I find her running her mouth to every media outlet to be embarrassing and unworthy of an Army Officer. If she was doing the right thing and after the investigation it was determined that she was being unfairly blamed, maybe I'd change my attitude. BTW, stating that some higher up general told her to handle the prisoners in an illegal matter flies no higher than her troops using it for an excuse. She is not conducting herself well. Even the Daily Show made fun of her "It wasn't me" excuses.

I agree, and I find that every media appearance that she makes further damages her credibility, and tarnishes the reputation of the U.S. Army. I find it distressing and dissapointing that she tries to blame everyone else for her a) ignorance of her own command or b) her complicity in this whole sordid affair.

Reinstitute hanging. This is tantamount to treason, considering the shifting public opinion to the war and the public's doubt about the effectiveness of our military in dealing with the Insurgents.

If there was any possibility, I bet she'd try to blame everything on Rummy or the CinC.

Solid

Have any of the males accused appeared on TV making excuses?

TR

You know what pisses me off about her?
 

Every morning when I was on duty. I would "snap" to the position of attention. Greet her with "Good Morning General," when she was entering the old-mans office.:(

Her display or lack thereof, intestinal fortitude to take responsibility is sickening!

Posted by Guy:

My thoughts exactly. No one wants to be the bad guy, but soemtimes you just need to be. Especially when you are in charge.